I briefly made it into the 1000s again in Scrabble at the weekend (I’m back at 950 now…) I’m enjoying the 3 minutes per side games most. It’s like table tennis without the exercise. Although, apparently the harder you think, you more calories you burn… Anyroad, to celebrate here’s a few handy tips:

If you’re starting, make sure the vowels in the word aren’t adjacent to the double letter score spaces on the board. Your opponent is more likely to score highly if (s)he can put a high scoring consonant on those squares. Eg if they’ve got a J, X, Q, Z, etc. they’re in fine form. Ex 1,2

When starting, see if you can reach the double letter scores with your word. Can you rearrange the word so the highest scorer is on a double letter score?

If you’re starting and your tiles are rubbish, change some of them. Often your scrabble partner will change theirs too. And if not, I don’t see a huge advantage in starting except for the double word score. Hopefully, you’ll have a longer word to start the game which means a more enjoyable board ready for bingos, instead of the dreaded X-shape made of 3 letter words. Which starts off ok, then gets harder and harder. Ej 5:

It’s all about the bingos (7 letter words). Playing low-scoring words is fine as long as it’s strategic and heading towards getting a rack more likely to get you a bingo. RETAINS has the letters you should aim to keep until you have a bingo.

That’s all for now, the best ones are on the back of the lid of most scrabble boxes. And to protect your marriage, invest in a good scrabble word dictionary.